A deal to extend federal long-term unemployment benefits is atop the Senate agenda this week, but its prospects remain dim in the Republican-lead House of Representatives.

The bipartisan bill seeks to extend benefits for another five months, starting from when they expired in January. The deal, reached more than a week ago, has raised hope among the roughly 2 million unemployed workers across the U.S. who could qualify for the extra payments. That total includes an estimated 26,000 people and counting in Oregon, where one-third of the state's unemployed have been out of work for six months or more.

But opposition in the House casts uncertainty over the bill. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said the bill raises serious concerns about how the benefits would be funded and paid out, and whether the extension would create any new jobs.

Still, Roll Call reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., wants to pass the extension this week after the body takes up aid for Ukraine. Reid is from Nevada, where unemployment is second-highest in the U.S.

The majority leader also that he wants to clear a bipartisan measure that would extend unemployment insurance benefits for five months. The proposal would be offset by a combination of revenue-raisers, including extending customs user fees.

“That is one thing we have to do this work period and we are going to try to do that,” Reid said, adding that some people are being “driven into poverty” after benefits expired in December.

For Cecil Rickman, the waiting game is interminable. He attends as many job fairs as he can and goes to a weekly “jobs club” meeting for displaced workers. Otherwise, he stays home and files online job applications because there isn’t money to do anything else.

“To go to Wal-Mart and buy something,” he said, “would be a treat right now.”

A sticking point for the House is the apparent difficulty of implementing the benefits. States have said that the retroactive payments may be too complex for their aging computer systems to handle. A New York Times editorial refutes those claims, voiced last week by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohop:

It’s clear that the concerns cited by Mr. Boehner were hardly unanimous. (Labor Secretary) Mr. Perez notes that many governors and state agencies were eager to see the benefits restored. That apparently doesn’t include Mississippi, but one of the Republican authors of the deal to extend benefits, Senator Rob Portman, clearly thinks it ought to include his state of Ohio.